Breaking Bad Is Addictive Like Crystal Meth

The best show of television has returned, and yet, there are still some who don’t understand the obsession that is Breaking Bad.
Why watch three seasons (season four debuted Sunday night) of a man slowly embracing his criminality? Is Walt a good guy who does bad things or are we essentially rooting for an evil man?

The answer for the Breaking Bad addiction -- a show that
follows a chemistry teacher’s conversion from boring middle-aged
nobody to crystal meth-cooking kingpin -- is simple. Transformation. We love watching characters transform in front of our very eyes.

It’s an interesting paradox, because far too often, we enjoy television shows due to the lack of change in its characters.

On
sitcoms, we want to see the same sets, the familiar character archetypes,
and in the case of multi-camera shows, the usual canned laughter.

For dramas, we’re used to seeing tried and true characters solve
intricate murder cases in 45 minutes. Even semi-complex characters like
Jack Bauer find their moral compass by season’s end.

Breaking Bad is a different animal entirely.

Unlike any other show on television, characters like Bryan
Cranston’s Walter White and Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman are ever-changing
due to their circumstances.

At the start of Breaking Bad,
Walter was a relatable poor schlub, stricken with cancer. Jesse was the
no good burnout hellbent on finding the easiest (and often most
dangerous) way to make a buck.

What a difference a few years (and some near-death experiences) make.

What makes Breaking Bad
impossible to turn away from are the constant moral choices - both for
the characters and the viewing audience. It’s easy to look at a
character such as Walter and see his fixation with money and power - his
inability to walk away from the drug game despite having secured his
family’s future in the event of his death.

But for the audience, it’s a different story. How long will we
watch Walter manipulate Jesse and further descend into the world drugs
and crime?

How long will we support Walter’s commitment to his
family, despite his willingness to engage in criminal activity that
threatens to tear his family apart?

And like Tony Soprano or Vic Mackey, how long will we as an audience
stand idle and watch Walter (and now Jesse) kill for the sake of his own survival,
despite knowing that somewhere deep down, he’s satisfying a dark urge
that’s forever been repressed?

The answers given are as easy as the questions posed. Like Walter
White and his newfound business relationship with Gus Fring, we as an
audience are in too deep.

Michael Langston Moore is a freelance writer who aims to be both entertaining and insightful. His written work focuses on television, film, and music, and his analytical approach has landed him two columns on Examiner.com. Michael has interviewed the likes of Donald Trump, Russell Simmons, Paris Hilton…